Julian Cassell's DIY Blog

Where to start wallpapering in a room can often cause a touch of anxiety, but basically you just need to follow a few simple rules. A decision on the best starting point is often dependent on the size and type of pattern in your chosen wallpaper. Basically any large pattern may well require centralizing the main motif on the most prominent wall in the room, which is normally one containing a chimney breast. With a very small pattern, centralizing the wallpaper design is not normally required. Below are two of the most common room shapes, showing the main principles I apply when deciding where to start wallpapering.

Bird’s eye view of simple room.

In a simple square or rectangular room with a small-patterned paper, always look to begin close to a corner, whilst never using the corner itself as a true vertical guideline. The first piece of wallpaper is hung close to the corner, leaving perhaps half a hang’s width to it’s left. You then simply continue all the way around the room till you get back to the first corner. Your join is therefore made along the corner with the final piece being the half hang to the left of your first length.

Bird’s eye view of room with chimney breast.

In a room with a chimney breast, you can treat it much the same as a ‘square’ room if your pattern doesn’t require centralizing. For a large pattern that requires centralizing, I’d begin as shown here. Centralize your pattern using the central vertical guideline of the chimney breast as your starting point. Continue around the external corner to the right of the first length, and into the internal corner. Continue around the external corner to the left of the first length, and into the internal corner. Paper all around the room finishing in the internal corner to the left of the chimney breast.

Other wallpapering starting points

• Joining in an internal corner is normally the best option as your eye doesn’t pick up the inevitable pattern discrepancy in a corner as it would if the join was in the middle of a wall.
• Choose your ‘joining corner’ according to whether it is the most inconspicuous in the room. For example the internal corner next to a chimney breast is ideal. In a ‘square’ room, the corner that is behind where the door opens is always a good option.
• Both above examples necessitate having a join between where the wallpaper starts and finishes. If no such join is necessary, in a room that has a floor to ceiling bookcase for example, then you are best off starting to one side of the bookcase and finishing around to the other side.
• Right handed people are best wallpapering clockwise around the room (as shown) because you tend to trim the paper from left to right i.e. from the edge of the last hung length across the one you have just hung. Left handed people may therefore find it easier to go anti-clockwise, as you will normally trim right to left.
• Please check out my guide – ‘Wallpapering a room’ which shows a photographic step-by-step sequence of working your way around a room.
• Much more information about centralizing a pattern, is shown in my guide ‘How to wallpaper a chimney breast’, and contains a few more detailed points on where to start wallpapering.

Tags: wallpaper, walls

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2012 at 1:08 pm and is filed under 'How-to' Guides, Painting and Papering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.